As the PC and the television continue to converge, both in delivery models and interaction models, we face a number of new challenges and opportunities. These devices, communicating through a network in a loosely coupled manner, will serve different and overlapping roles in presenting entertainment options. Commonly, the PC is used by the individual, used for many non-entertainment tasks and often located away from the main entertainment room. In contrast, the television is in the center of the entertainment space, often used by groups of people in various social contexts, has an impoverished input device (the remote) and has a lower resolution display. It lacks computational power, uses a different model for content distribution, and a different model for media presentation (channel-based).
Today we are seeing the beginnings of a federated model, where the PC is used to store content and the TV (or set top box) uses the local internet system to access and present the content. As computers become less expensive, some of this will move directly onto the TV—small hard drives and internet access will make TVs capable of getting at web content without requiring a PC. Nonetheless, some of the interaction is likely to remain on the PC. You may receive recommendations for video, gather content links and share links while using a PC. The TV and the PC will work in a loosely coupled fashion to support the Collect-Relate-Create-Donate (CRCD) model.